Victoria Barnett has it all.A great career as a nurse practitioner. A handsome and loving husband. A beautiful home in the suburbs and a plan to fill it with children. Life is perfect—or so it seems.Then she’s in a terrible accident… and her life is forever changed.Sylvia Robinson is hired as a caregiver for Victoria. Sylvia moves into a spare room, feeds Victoria, and takes her on long walks. The two women become friends.But as it turns out, this simple nursing job is more than what it seems. As Sylvia and Victoria's friendship grows, Sylvia realizes that Victoria is desperately trying to tell her something.If only she could speak.
Book reviews of mysteries, historical fiction and graphic novels with a smattering of non-fiction books.
Monday, April 7, 2025
The Wife Upstairs
Sunday, April 6, 2025
The Lindens
This Blood Runs
Iris is being hunted.Through the burning sugarcane fields she must flee Sweet Blood and the country.But in the blue hills of Mexico awaits a new set of horrors. Blood trails and missing girls tell a story: what Iris was told about her past might not be true.The game is on for her to stay alive and find the person she loves. The challenge is the truth because that's the thing about lies, Iris has learned...They multiply.This Blood Burns picks up with the intensity, twists and the shock that left readers of This Family Lies enthralled. Coming late summer.
It took me a few chapters to become familiar with the action that occurred in the first book. In a perfect world I would have read these novels consecutively. I felt awful that Iris experienced so many tramatic events while she was on the lam. She believed that law enforcement was searching for her in order to charge her with killing her husband so she put up with alot. SPOILER ALERT We find out later that this was false. Every person who helped her run was actually an enemy of her but she didn't know it. These reveals were all shocking but part of the many twists and turns in this story. Iris's run covers most of the pages but at one point she agrees to help the FBI catch the leaders of the cartel. This is where the story becomes gruesome. As Iris uncovers information about the trafficking trade, it's ugliness is shown.
I recommend beginning with This Family Lies before reading this book. There are clues that eminate from the earlier novel and these clues are not explained. The reader really needs to have read This Family Lies in order to understand what the clues refer to.
I loved reading the novel and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Delver Season 1
When the door to a living dungeon surfaces in the tiny hamlet of Oddgoat, village girl Temerity Aster has two choices: abandon the only home she's ever known to carpet baggers and sellswords, or carve out a place for herself and her family in the new and dangerous world of delving.
Everything Bundt the Truth
She cheated on dessert. A murderer killed before dinner. If she doesn't dish up the solution, she'll be banned from the club. A recent widow, Jane Marsh, is determined to recapture a rich, full life. She strives for youthful fun by riding a bicycle downtown on her lunch hour in a suit and heels, smoking cigars, eating at hipster restaurants, and re-entering the dating scene, even if her dates prove to be peculiar. Her most fervent desire, though, is to join an exclusive dinner club. She auditions but is barred when her housekeeper is found murdered, and she and her guest list become the suspect list. Her, a killer? So what if her two late husbands died under suspicious circumstances. It doesn't make her a killer. Having passed off a store-bought Bundt cake as her own creation, she may have committed a culinary crime, but never murder! This first in the dinner club murder mystery series is similar to cozies written by authors Jessica Beck, Joanne Fluke, and Leslie Meier. If you like cozy mysteries, tight friendships, and gripping who-done-its, you'll love Whalen's Everything Bundt the Truth. Buy the book now to join the dinner club craze today.
My initial attraction to the book was the inviting red book cover with the bundt cake pan. The cover is gorgeous. However, the writing style was simple and didn't entertain me. There are a few positives though. I thought that the murder occurring in the first chapter was a good idea as then the rest of the book is about the investigation. The plot premise was also good. Murdering the housekeeper was a great idea but being denied entry into a dinner club because she was killed didn't make sense to me. It was a stretch too far.
Jane was an obvious suspect since the death occurred in her home. The police were also interested in her because both of her husbands died in similar accidents. The author focused alot of attention on Jane's interactions with family and friends. I prefer a storyline that spends most of the pages on the murder investigation. .
Many cozy lovers will enjoy this traditional cozy but it wasn't my cup of tea. 3 out of 5 stars.
Friday, April 4, 2025
The Chaiwallah
In the heart of bustling Mumbai, three neighbors—each caught in their own struggles—find unexpected solace from a new street vendor, whose quiet wisdom and selfless acts guide them toward paths they never imagined.Aditi, the only woman in her community with a degree, dreams of climbing the corporate ladder to secure her son's future. But after her latest rejection, self-doubt consumes her.From a nearby opulent apartment, Sumeet has always followed his father's advice. Now, at the peak of his business career, a toxic work culture begins to make him question the life he's built.Arjun slumps beneath the bodhi tree by Sumeet's building. Haunted by a troubled past, he drowns in alcohol and debt, desperate for a way out.When a new tea seller arrives in their neighborhood square, his fragrant chai, warmth, and wisdom draw them in. One cup at a time, he nudges them closer to finding their true purpose.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Can't Wait Wednesday #41
When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and her nurse, Sona, is excited to learn more about the vivacious artist who shares her half-Indian identity. Sona, yearning for a larger life, finds herself carried away by Mira's stories of her travels and exploits and is shocked by accounts of the many lovers the painter has left scattered throughout Europe. When Mira dies quite suddenly and mysteriously, Sona falls under suspicion, and her quiet life is upended.
The key to proving Sona's innocence may lie in a cryptic note and four paintings Mira left in her care, sending the young woman on a mission to visit the painter's former friends and lovers across a tumultuous Europe teetering toward war. On the precipice of discovering her own identity, Sona learns that the painter's charming facade hid a far more complicated, troubled soul.
I might have time next week to read the book. We shall see.
The Sirens
2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister’s house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack—but Jess is nowhere to be found.As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them—and in her—that no one else has.1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…A breathtaking tale of female resilience and the bonds of sisterhood across time and space, The Sirens captures the power of dreams, and the mystery and magic of the sea.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
No Roast for the Weary
When the Village Blend opens a Writer's Block Lounge, a cold case crime turns up the heat on Clare and her crew in this gripping new entry in the beloved Coffeehouse Mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Cleo Coyle.As much as master roaster Clare Cosi adores coffee, the landmark shop she manages won't survive if she doesn't sell enough of it. So when the Village Blend's customer traffic grinds to a halt, she turns to her staff for creative ideas, and the Writer's Block Lounge is born.Madame, the eccentric octogenarian owner of the shop, is upset by this news. Years ago, a group of accomplished writers used the shop's second-floor lounge to inspire each other, but the group disbanded when something dark occurred. Though that history is shrouded in mystery, Clare presses forward...Soon the Village Blend tables are filled with aspiring novelists, playwrights, and poets, all happy to be coaxed, cajoled, and caffeinated by her coffeehouse crew. Clare admires the stamina of these scribes, many of them toiling at night jobs—driving taxis, tending bar, ushering for Broadway—while penning projects during the day.Then one of their fictions turns fatal when a shocking secret leads to a deadly end. Unless Clare can untangle this mystery, uncover the truth, and stop a desperate killer, she fears more of these weary writers may be marked for eternal rest. ~ Includes a knockout menu of recipes.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
The Versailles Formula
Genevieve Sturbridge was never meant for a quiet life in the English countryside. Once an artist in the heart of London, she now spends her days in restless solitude. But when a familiar figure from her past arrives with an urgent request, she is thrust into a perilous world of spies and a formula that could shift the balance of power between France and England.The thrill of the chase is intoxicating—the cryptic clues hidden in plain sight, the challenge of ferreting secrets from dangerous opponents, the undeniable rush of being needed again. But with every step deeper into the mystery, the danger grows. Someone is watching. Someone is hunting. And the more she uncovers, the more she wonders: Has she walked willingly into a trap?
High Tea and Misdemeanors
When a wedding is tragically averted by the death of the bridesmaid, Theodosia is determined to prove that it was murder in the latest entry in this New York Times bestselling series.Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier, Drayton Conneley, are tapped to cater the elegant wedding of Bettina and Jamie. Theodosia and Drayton are setting up when they hear a crash from the greenhouse. Shockingly, they discover that part of the roof has collapsed trapping a bridesmaid and the groom. He will pull through but the bridesmaid is no more. Theodosia is convinced it was murder.INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!